Photographie: Lisa de Boeck
Designer Thomas Lommée’s project OpenStructures is currently on show at Art Centre Z33. The OpenStructures project explores the possibilities of an open design system. It is based on a common geometric grid that is freely available for everyone to download and use. Designs created within the grid, ranging from simple household appliances to complete houses, are flexible and diverse yet always compatible. OpenStructures initiates a kind of collaborative Meccano where objects become dynamic patchwork puzzles that can be easily adapted to current needs, creating a new standard for sustainable and democratic design.
The workshop will be dealing with one of the research areas of OpenStructures, namely architecture. Three architects of the Brussels Cooperation Collective have worked on the subject, with ‘Case study n°1’ the region of Katanga, Congo. The results of this case study are on show in the exhibition. The ‘open source’ principal is reinterpreted as to involve local social, economical and ecological dimensions.
The themes addressed in OpenStructures - ‘open source’, democratic design, open economy of materials and designs, collaborative projects - will be further scrutinised in this workshop.
Key questions are: What role can ‘open source urbanism’ play in developing countries? Is it possible to link a local economy of materials and goods to architectural design? What role can modular architecture play in this? And what is the role of the architect? How temporary or sustainable is this ‘Open Architecture’? How to define the concept of a ‘house’ in terms of Open Architecture: village or encampment?
For this workshop a distinct team has been brought together:
Luigi Ferrara, director of the Institute Without Boundaries, Toronto, will give a lecture and will moderate the presentations of the invited architects and collectives working on similar topics: The Swiss architect and designer Thomas Jomini, the Brussels collective Rotor, and the Open Source House Project, based in Rotterdam. Media
The OpenStructures exhibition is not a finished product, but part of a wider research project. The different themes addressed in the OpenStructures pro-ject will be further explored in a workshop on Open Architecture on December 9. The workshop will explore the possibilities of an open design process in architecture and more specifically the opportunities it offers for humanitarian projects.
